From PC Mag: When the Wii was first announced, gamers were left scratching their heads as to what Nintendo had done to its home console. Gone was the traditional gamepad, replaced instead by a motion controller called the Wii Remote (also commonly referred to as a Wiimote). The Wii went on to be extremely successful, but more recently Nintendo has been fighting a patent lawsuit because of that innovative Wii Remote.
As Rolling Stone reports, iLife Technologies owns a motion-sensing accelerometer patent which it uses in an infant/elderly person monitoring system. However, iLife also believes Nintendo infringes the patent by using the technology in Wii Remotes. Nintendo obviously disagrees, but a jury decided back in August decided that Nintendo did indeed infringe the patent.
iLife and its law firm Munck Wilson Mandala originally wanted $144 million, but the final award was $10.1 million. Nintendo appealed the decision, claiming iLife's patent was invalid and pointed to the description contained in the patent not having been written properly. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed this week and upheld the verdict.
Nintendo now faces a choice: appeal the verdict again, or decide to pay iLife the $10.1 million award, settle the lawsuit, and move on. Doing so would be to admit they infringed the patent, though. The Wii Remote is now a legacy controller as neither current Nintendo platform (the 3DS or the Switch) use it. With that in mind, Nintendo may be tempted to pay.
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